


let's fly

by morphogenesis, zecretsantamods



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zecretsantamods/pseuds/zecretsantamods
Summary: Childhood promises come true, in a roundabout way.





	let's fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electric016](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electric016/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! Cute Junepeis are my favorite thing to write so I hope you like it (plus bonus Aoi mention, pretend he’s just behind them fussing over his phone and ruined travel agenda).

“Hey, Jumpy?” Kanny is standing on her swing, rocking back and forth out of sync with Junpei beside her. She’s looking up at the sky like she used to at school – sitting against the chain link fence with her arms around her knees – before Junpei came up to her and asked her to play baseball. (She hit him in the face with a hard pitch. He still played with her the next day.) Without waiting for him to answer, she continues, “Where do you wanna go if you could go anywhere in the world?”  
  
“Um…” Junpei tries to think about places he’s heard of that might interest Kanny. She seems to know a little about everything and he doesn’t want to look stupid. “…Canada.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
Was that a bad answer? Junpei doubles down: “Yeah, ‘cause I wanna speak French.” She will never believe this, he thinks, because she knows he can barely remember their English lessons.  
  
“I think that’s only part of Canada,” Kanny says, but continues rocking unperturbed. “But that’s really cool! Oniichan says he wants to go to Germany.” She pouts. “He says he’ll go by himself though, so I said I would go somewhere twenty times cooler.”  
  
Junpei drags himself to a stop, his heels scuffing against the mat under the swingset. “Like where?” Kanny must’ve thought of something great already.  
  
“I don’t know.” With a final thrust, Kanny jumps off the swing and for a moment she floats, her skirt rising up like a bubble and toes pointed like a ballerina, before she hits the ground and falls on her butt.  
  
“Kanny!” Junpei runs to her and pulls her up as she complains about being sore. “Come on, it’s getting dark. I can carry you to the bus stop.” He intends to, but Kanny’s heavier than she looks and she’s taller than him, so she has to lift her feet so they won’t drag as he lugs her on his back.  
  
“I’m okay Jumpy.”  
  
He wheezes in protest, and makes it halfway to the stop before he lets her slip off his back. While he’s still bent over with hands on his knees, catching his breath, she pats his back. When he can talk again, he straightens up and tells her “Wherever you go, I’ll come with you.”  
  
Kanny clasps her hands together. “Yeah, let’s do it! Tomorrow!”  
  
“But tomorrow is Sports Day,” Junpei protests. “My dad said he’s gonna come watch me.”  
  
“Day after tomorrow?”  
  
Junpei considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t think my mom will give me enough money for a plane ticket.” Last time they went shopping, Mom wouldn’t even give him change for the capsule machine. “And we don’t even know where we’re going.”  
  
Kanny sighs. “Then after high school.” She nods. “That way we have time to think of somewhere cooler than Germany, and save enough money to go.”  
  
Junpei likes the idea that he’s still gonna know Kanny when they’re in high school. They’ve only been friends for three years but he wants to play with her for a hundred more. “Okay!” He offers her his hand to shake, she does, and then while she’s still holding on to him drags him to their bus stop.  
  
*  
  
“What do you mean you don’t remember that?” Junpei grouses as he and Akane leave the museum. People are looking at them funny because he’s carrying her piggyback, but Akane doesn’t seem to care as she rests her chin on his shoulder. She climbed on him when they went to leave and he knows not to toss her off.  
  
“We talked about places we wanted to visit all the time. Why does that conversation stand out?”  
  
“Because it was the first one.” He glances up at the sky; it doesn’t look any different from the same one Akane gazed at all those years ago. “Although if I remember correctly, Aoi wanted to come to Germany alone.”  
  
“Eh. Oniichan’s alone right now.”   
  
Aoi is back at the hotel, glued to his phone and talking through a business deal with a partner organization. (Junpei never actually met Aoi when they were kids, but he thinks Young Aoi would be both embarrassed by Adult Aoi and jealous of his money.)  
  
Junpei stops to hoist Akane further up his back. “And that’s good for us.” He smiles to himself at Akane’s contended noise – but his back is killing him. “Okay, enough, you can walk.”  
  
Akane squeezes his waist harder between her knees. “Nope. My ankle still hurts.”  
  
“I’m not carrying you in Thailand. From now on you’re gonna have to rely on your brother for all carrying services.”  
  
Akane doesn’t respond except to scratch his scalp.  
  
*  
  
“Hey, Kanny?” Junpei says as he and Kanny watch the sunset. She liked the Jumpy doll. Good. But it doesn’t make their parting better. “Promise you won’t take the Jumpy doll to Canada without me.”  
  
“Okay.” She makes the Jumpy doll walk across her knees. “When you think of that really cool place to go to after high school, promise you’ll call me.”  
  
*  
  
In Thailand Junpei is sweating his ass off on a hike when he thinks aloud, “I think we’re still looking for that cool place.”  
  
“You’re right – it is really hot,” Akane says while fanning herself. She winks at him when he stares at her, unimpressed. “But isn’t it the journey that’s fun?”  
  
Junpei steals her fan and holds it over his head when she tries to snatch it back. “Yeah,” he admits, then snaps the fan shut and gently presses it to her lips. “It is. So where to next? Somewhere’s gotta be the place.”  
  
Akane pulls something out of her pocket – the Jumpy doll. “He’s never been to Canada.” She kisses the worn doll and Junpei swears he isn’t jealous of an inanimate object.  
  
“That’s close enough to justify picking up Carlos, right?” Carlos always cooperates when they try to kidnap him (and he distracts Aoi when Junpei and Akane want to be alone).  
  
“Of course!” They take each other’s hands and chatter about Canada and everywhere else on the map.


End file.
